There are discussions in social networks that one sees and must decide at that moment whether to continue or stop and thanks to that aspect of the network, which allows others to see what others are talking about, I was able to observe (like everyone else), the issue of the financial boom or the classic “come back Venezuela is fixed” where there are many smoke peddlers generating “opinion” and by that I mean red and blue as Laura De Rosa, Editor in Chief of The Freedom Post, a media in which I am also honored to work, would say.
Within these social media “discussions”, there was a question asked by our editor-in-chief on twitter a few days ago that brought to my attention some assertions about the future of Venezuela made by an economist named Federico Alves and to which, as an economist myself, I decided to respond.
@LauraDeRosaMart: I did not understand in general this tweet. I also did not understand the intention behind it. How and when will what Mr. Alves says happen? What current conditions lead to that scenario posed? Can anyone get me closer to a coherent explanation? Thanks in advance.
@federicoalves: An economic boom is coming to Venezuela that everyone in Latin America will envy. We will see a SECOND wave of emigration from Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, etc., to Venezuela, but of professionals and investors.Europeans will line up for visas.Save this tweet.
I am ready to reply some assertions to Federico Alves whom from here on I will call “economist influencer” since he manipulates on the basis of the ignorance of many in the economic subject, and apparently, in this era placing unintelligible graphs and quoting authors makes you look .
In this first part I’m going to skip the character and focus on his Twitter timeline, which is definitely a gem.
Laura De Rosa’s questions (LDR)
I am going to go in parts to explain Laura De Rosa’s questions that can also answer the questions of other people who felt or thought the same way.
LDR: “I did not generally understand this tweet.”
-It is not necessary to understand it: it is a tweet to generate virality, not very serious, that generates conflict and polarization. There, the illustrious professor of the UCV uses his followers and niche to shake the Twitter algorithm a little, doing a sort of Hermes el Iluminado or Reinaldo Dos Santos by trying to predict immigration waves to Venezuela -and not precisely of Venezuelans but of “investors”- which makes me deduce that the temporality of the message corresponds to the socialist era of Maduro.
LDR: “I didn’t understand the intent behind it either.”
-Later on, his own intention will be seen; everything fits within the political game that exists right now in Venezuela between dialogues, fraudulent elections and cohabitation with tyranny.
LDR: “How and when will what Mr. Alves says happen?”:
-Advancing in the text, the “how” is through economic theories from 1930, (a bit outdated), but seeing that the “economist influencer” in his profile is an “Anti-Bitcoinist” I have for sure that he is a Statist economist, who likes money printing and the famous social plans that do not get anyone out of poverty but keep them stuck there.
LDR: “What are the current conditions that lead to this scenario?”:
-No current condition leads to that: the idea that Europeans will queue up to stay in Venezuela is only in the mind of someone who is at his delirious peak, especially when it is known that by 2022 Venezuelan migration will exceed Syrian migration in the world, data that this gentleman does not take into account, not to mention the pandemic situation the world is going through.
Could it be that he is talking about the UN Agenda for Sustainability for 2030? If so, it is just as catastrophic for Venezuelans.
The Keynesian approach
As an economist, I am a pragmatist and as my mentor Miklos Lukacs would say “we conservatives do not encapsulate ourselves in a single economic theory because we do not theorize: we adapt to the needs of the communities and depending on the country we borrow economic theories”.
But he also emphasizes that “you can have the best economic plan in the world or the best president, but if people are morally and economically bankrupt any proposal will be made in vain”.
Venezuela has been morally bankrupt for many years, due to merchants of hope such as Mr. Alves and company that serve as propagandists for all Venezuelan socialist politicians, that coupled with the reality that the universities in Venezuela only formed professionals molded to the partisan reality and not according to the needs of the country. The universities in Venezuela for decades have been centers of Marxist indoctrination, so it is not surprising the popularity of socialism in the region.
Among the proposals put forward in our conversation, Professor Miklos mentions liberals, ordoliberals, even Austrians, but never mentions Keynes, unlike our “economist influencer” Federico Alves, who makes a show of mentioning Keynes in some possible proposals for the economic welfare of Venezuela.
@federicoalves: A post-war reconstruction process, what is needed, implies a very strong investment just for the country to develop any area of the economy. The execution of these investments raises the GDP dramatically. (Read Keynes: The Multiplier of Investment)
The detail that jumps out is that his tweet focuses on “A post-war reconstruction process” which is a fallacy, what destroyed the economy and culture of Venezuela was the social democracy and socialism that has reigned in the country since 1958. This makes me ask myself, “We no longer live through that”, because it refers to the investment multiplier proposed by Keynes.
What is Keynesian theory?
Keynesianism is the economic theory that promotes state intervention through economic policy to stimulate demand and encourage consumption. The theory was put forward by John Maynard Keynes in his work “General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”, published in 1936, after the Great Depression. In it he studied all the factors of production that make up a country’s economy, such as investment, consumption, demand, savings and public spending.
In conclusion, for Keynes, the government is the only lifeline to get out of the crisis, and even in this investment multiplier factor, the government intervenes aggressively, based on the intervention of the State as an economic agent.
Based on this, and taking into account that YES, we have lived Keynes in Venezuela for decades -even Chávez was an avowed Keynesian and used public spending as a weapon of political domination- then what economist Alves has proposed is to return to the same old economics.
The Economist Influencer
It is not for nothing that I call economist and “professor” Federico Alves an “influencer” since it seems that his years of studies at UCV and Harvard were not enough for him to behave in a less partisan and more serious way with respect to what he publishes in his social networks. As I already said, he seems to be a python, launching premonitions without basis or theoretical foundations, only some lucid tweets that do not correspond to the Venezuelan reality (maybe in other realities, yes).
Regarding the partisan environment of our character, it is important to say that he is a close friend of the Secretary General of the socialist party Acción Democrática Henry Ramos Allup, which makes him operate as a faithful propagandist for the socialist cause of Venezuela.
For those who do not know this side of the history of Acción Democrática, I leave you the episode of my podcast where I deepen about this political party with philologist Andrés Della Quiesa:
Returning to the character I am going to leave you a series of tweets of his own authorship so that you can witness the intellectual leftism of our character and can make your own opinion.
@sllucchese: Mr. Alves, I was born in 1966, Henry Ramos was already a congressman in Carabobo. Since I have "reason" this gentleman has not been known to have any "job" that can justify his ostentatious way of life, at least that; or he won the lottery or has lived on corruption for 53 years?
@federicoalves: Take Ramos Allup off that list. He is the next president of the new democratic stage.
@federicoalves: I differ: you have to vote for anyone proposed by the opposition, even if they barely know how to walk. The goal is to get @nicolasmaduro out, governorships and municipalities are an end to, not an end in itself.
Finally and to conclude, returning to the original intention with the important assertion of our editor-in-chief of The Freedom Post: “I did not understand the intention behind it either”, it was clear that Federico Alves is a propaganda agent of the united platform, formerly Mesa de la Unidad Democrática (MUD) to campaign politically from the United States to his socialist political friends in Venezuela. He is simply a disguise who calls himself a Republican but who voted for Biden and is willing to vote for Liz Cheney or Mitt Romney who are traitors to Trump’s Republican Party: yes, this kind of scum is the one who is abroad and calls himself Venezuelan.
God, Country and Family
Article for TheFreedomPost
